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Croly, Herbert David, 1869-1930

"The Promise of American Life"

The
corporation should plainly be told that the fight would be abandoned
wherever it was ready to surrender its unlimited franchises for a
limited but exclusive monopoly, which in these cases should in all
fairness run for a longer term than would be ordinarily permissible.
I have lingered over the case of corporations enjoying municipal
franchises, because they offer the only existing illustration of a
specific economic situation--a situation in which a monopolized service
is based upon exclusive and permanent economic advantages. Precisely the
same situation does not exist in any other part of the economic area;
but the idea is that under a policy of properly regulated recognition
such a situation may come to exist in respect to those corporations
which should be subject to the jurisdiction of the central government;
and just in so far as it does come to exist, the policy of the central
government should resemble the one suggested for the municipal
governments and already occasionally adopted by them.


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